Drinking Game
by jinxedklutz
Summary: Sano wants Kenshin to talk about his past, and he tries to do it by getting him drunk. But it doesn't go exactly as he planned. Please rr. Complete.


_Disclaimer:_ I do not own Rurouni Kenshin; I do not own the moon. Oh, brother, as if you couldn't figure it out already. 

_Summary:_ Sano wants Kenshin to talk about his past, and he tries to do it by getting him drunk. But it doesn't go exactly as he planned.

_"Drinking Game"_

Kenshin assisted his Sake inebriated friend into his room at the Kamiya dojo. Sano had finally managed to drag him on an outing, but he was the only one who'd gotten drunk. The only thing Kenshin had been drinking was green tea.

At the moment, Sano was singing some tavern song in an off-key voice. Kenshin wondered with amusement if the Sake was making him sing badly or if he was just tone-deaf.

"Shh... Sano, you'll awaken Kaoru and Yahiko, that you will." He carefully lowered his tall friend onto his futon.

Sano replied, "Oh... hey Kenshin, I know you're not drunk." He grasped Kenshin's arm, keeping him from rising. A second later, Kenshin found himself pulled to the floor.

"You cheated," Sano continued, his brown eyes large and earnest like a drunken puppy's.

Kenshin smiled indulgently. "I didn't cheat, Sano. I never had any intention of getting drunk, that I did not."

"Party pooper," Sano grumbled, but he was smiling crookedly.

"I'm going to bed now, Sano," Kenshin informed his friend, starting to rise. However, he toppled back down again, having forgotten that Sano was still gripping his arm.

"Kenshin... I've been meaning to ask you forever... Why do you smile so much?" Sanosuke slurred out.

Kenshin blinked and said, "Oro..."

"Oh, come on," Sano retorted, shaking his spiked head back and forth. "You're faking, but _why_ do you fake?"

Kenshin felt suddenly trapped and nervous. "Sano... you're drunk; you don't know what you're saying."

Sano stared almost defiantly into Kenshin's eyes. "I wish you'd just open up for once, Kenshin. Maybe that's why I tried to get you drunk tonight," he admitted.

Kenshin now felt almost exposed. He didn't _want_ Sano asking these uncomfortable questions; he didn't _want_ him to know why he faked some of the smiles. "Sano, please just go to sleep," he requested, gently.

Sano shook his head, stubbornly. "No... now that I've said it... Well, neither of us is going to be able to forget that in the morning. Why can't you just talk about this?"

Kenshin evaded, "Talk about what, Sano?"

Sano frowned, and for a moment looked completely baffled. Then his expression cleared and he shook his finger at Kenshin. "Look here, you, you're not going to get out of this by playing dumb, Kenshin."

Kenshin sighed then tucked his hands into his shirt sleeves. "What if I used my sakabatou on you?" he questioned, half-jokingly. He wondered how much of this conversation Sanosuke would be remembering later. And if he did, would he even think about the tone of voice Kenshin had used? If he did, Kenshin decided he would be in trouble.

"You wouldn't... besides, last time it took you forever to knock me out," Sanosuke reasoned.

"Last time, you had the Zanbatou, and you weren't drunk," Kenshin argued.

Sano frowned and questioned defensively, "Who says I wasn't drunk?"

"Not drunk, then," Kenshin replied, "Just hard-headed." Now he was _really_ going to be in for it if Sano remembered. But Kenshin doubted he would. At that thought, he wondered, 'So why _not_ tell him whatever he wants to know?'

"Look, Kenshin," Sanosuke slurred, "you just insulted me. So what's stopping you from sharing a bit? If you were any normal guy and I had asked you questions like I did just now, you'd have probably knocked my head off... But you don't. That's not _patience_, Kenshin, that's almost inhuman"

Kenshin felt like glaring suddenly. "Inhuman? Sano isn't that a little harsh?"

"And... have you noticed that whenever Kaoru smacks you around, you take it like you're weaker than her, and we all know that you were the greatest swordsman of the revolution. Tell me why you pretend. Come on, Kenshin," Sano begged.

Kenshin swallowed away his remaining hesitance. "I guess it's better than getting angry, that it is." He sighed at himself. 'While you're being honest, why not drop the antiquated formality?' "I've learned that anger can be very deadly. My own wife died as a result of my anger and hatred..."

Sano straightened a bit, but when he spoke, his voice was still slurred, "I thought... I mean, I figured you were married." He smacked himself in the head. "That's not what I'm trying to say! Dummy, dummy..." he reprimanded incoherently for a long moment as Kenshin sweat dropped in the mean time. "What was she like, Kenshin?"

Kenshin thought for a long moment. "Complicated," he finally answered with a wry smile.

"You said, you got angry and it killed her... What happened?" Sano asked quietly.

"I was fighting; a wound prevented me from seeing properly. She threw herself in the way of the blow I intended for the man I was fighting with..." Kenshin touched the scar on his cheek almost unconsciously. "She cut me with her dagger..."

Sano seemed subdued for a moment and then he exploded with, "What! Why the heck would she do that?"

Kenshin jumped and tucked his hand back into his sleeve. "It's complicated... But to tell you the truth-as you so naively requested-I believe it was her final revenge on me for killing her lover. And yet a sort of mark of remembrance... something to help me remember what war and anger does, and that it is better to live in peace." Kenshin smiled with too much brightness. "But then, maybe I'm reading too much into a woman's last, dying act."

Sanosuke remained silent for a long time, a crease between his dark brows. He looked up. "She's why you decided not to kill anymore, right?" Was he imagining it, or had Sano's slur vanished?

"Yes," Kenshin answered, simply.

The young fighter looked about to say something else then his tanned face suddenly went a little green, and he covered his mouth with both hands.

Kenshin asked uncertainly, "Sano?" That was when his friend decided to throw up all over him.

He came up after a moment of wracking coughs. "Sorry, Kenshin," he mumbled weakly, with a wan, apologetic smile.

Kenshin gave him a disgusted, tolerant look. "Never mind, Sano..."

The next day, Sano acted as if nothing had happened, which was what Kenshin had expected. However, around afternoon, Kaoru and Yahiko got into a little spat, and Kenshin attempted to break it up.

"Now, now, calm down..." he said in his wobbly, placating voice.

Kaoru turned her irritation on him, apparently not wanting to be mollified, and he ended up with a few goose eggs on his red head.

"Orororororo..." he moaned as he wilted to the ground in a dizzy-eyed heap.

He recovered to the sound of Kaoru and Yahiko's voices bickering in the distance and saw Sano's rooster-headed self leaning over him with a friendly smile.

"You know, Kenshin," Sano said as Kenshin got to his feet. "Maybe you're right... Anger... is good to control. But maybe holding it in is hurting someone, after all."

Kenshin blinked. "What do you mean, Sano?" he questioned, innocently. 'How much exactly does he remember?'

Sano helped the wandering samurai to his feet before replying, "Holding all your emotions locked inside may be saving other people from being hurt a little, but it could be hurting you a lot."

Kenshin stood there in stunned silence. "You weren't really drunk, that you were not," he accused Sano.

Sanosuke rubbed the back of his neck in a sheepish gesture. "Actually, I was... I'm just good at handling my sake..."

"But you tricked me purposefully," Kenshin retorted. "That you did."

Sano dropped his hand and shrugged. "How else was I supposed to get you to open up to me?"

Kenshin blinked a couple times. "You could have asked, that you could've."

Sano tucked his hands in his pockets and said, "I doubt you'd have given me a straight answer."

Kenshin felt guilty at the realization that Sano was correct. "Maybe..." he began then stopped himself.

He nodded his head then smiled the warmest smile he could muster. "I do not appreciate the way you tricked me, that I do not, Sano-san, however, I'm willing to forgive you..."

Sano questioned in a surprised, high-pitched, cracking tone, "You are?" He blinked. "You mean you're not mad, Kenshin?"

Kenshin shrugged. "On the contrary, Sano; I'm rather glad you know now, that I am." He let the other shoe drop, "On the other hand," he said, while moving his hand over the handle of his sakabatou. "I think you were correct when you said that restraining my anger was unhealthy..."

"I was?" Sano squeaked, glancing down at Kenshin's reverse-blade with widened eyes.

Kenshin smiled. "That you were," he said before drawing his sword and following Kaoru's example from a moment earlier.

Sano squawked with fright and went running. "Kenshin! I didn't mean it like that!" he protested. Kenshin just grinned...

"_Aagh_! _Ken_-shin!"

The End -evil grin-


End file.
